Tracks: Agriculture, Business, Cinema and Photo, Construction, Development and Hardware, Emergency and SAR, Energy, Fire, Infrastructure, Inspection, Law Enforcement, Public Safety, Surveying and Mapping
The first civil drone pilots were early adopters and enthusiasts who had a passion for aviation and a grasp of its fundamentals. However, as the industry continues to grow, new pilots are often mid-career professionals with no aeronautical background or skills — and no particular desire to become aviators, apart from the data they can gather using drones. This represents a profound change for the whole aviation industry, with substantial implications for training.
In this session, award-winning drone instructor Patrick Sherman of the Roswell Flight Test Crew will highlight the gaps that exist, both in knowledge and motivation, between the student pilots of decades past and future drone pilots. What are the biases that conventional flight training programs bring to the instruction of these new aviators, and how do they inhibit their learning? What basic concepts, taken for granted by aviation professionals and enthusiasts, baffle these outsiders who will soon constitute the largest group of certified pilots in the world?